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FESTIVALS Norway

Beatles to open the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund

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- Peter Flinth’s adaptation of Norway’s most popular coming-of-age novel will launch the main programme at the 42nd showcase from 16-22 August

Beatles to open the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund
Beatles by Peter Flinth

When Norwegian author Lars Saabye Christensen concluded in 1984 that “true friendship endures all – and no band in the world is better than The Beatles [+see also:
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,” he had written one of Norway’s most popular coming-of-age novels of all time, Beatles. The film adaptation has been under way for a long time, but it will be ready for the opening of the 42nd Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund on Sunday 17 August. 

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Norwegian producer Jørgen Storm Rosenberg – who ten years ago opened the festival in Haugesund with his first feature, Norwegian directors Aksel Hennie and John Andreas Andersen’s Uno [+see also:
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– has asked Danish director Peter Flinth to film Axel Hellstenius’ screenplay about the four Oslo boys Kim,Seb, Ola and Gunnar between 1965 and 1972, their adolescent and early adult years.

“The film, like the novel, is a concise picture of that time – it is a humorous and sensitive tale of teenagers’ insecurity and quests. Everyone who was young in the 1960s, who was young later or is young today will identify with and enjoy the adaptation of Saabye Christensen’s universe. I really look forward to opening with Beatles,” said the festival’s programme director, Håkon Skogrand.

Flinth, who was last at Haugesund with his Swedish film Arn: The Kingdom at Road’s End (2008), from his series based on Jan Guillou’s trilogy, and who most recently signed Nobel’s Last Will [+see also:
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(2012), from Liza Marklund’s novel, has been working with a cast comprising Halvor Tangen Schultz, Jonathan Chedeville, Louis Williams, Håvard Jackwitz, Peter Gantzler and Susanne Boucher. SF Norge will release the Storm Rosenberg production domestically on 29 August.

The festival will be launched by the Amanda Awards ceremony – Norway’s national film prizes – on 16 August, and before the 22 August closure, festival director Gunnar Johan Løvvik will have presented the main programme consisting of, among others, 20 films, special screenings, a Nordic Focus, the French Touch selection, the Cinema Italia sidebar and the children’s Cinemagi section. Lastly, the event will also incorporate New Nordic Films, with its co-production and finance market (20-21 August).

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